Context: Chat Control 2.0: EU governments set to approve the end of private messaging and secure encryption
“By making a minor concession EU governments hope to find a majority next week to approve the controversial ‘chat control’ bill. According to the proposed child sexual abuse regulation (CSAR), providers of messengers, e-mail and chat services would be forced to automatically search all private messages and photos for suspicious content and report it to the EU. To find a majority for this unprecedented mass surveillance, the EU Council Presidency proposed Tuesday that the scanners would initially search for previously classified CSAM only, and even less reliable technology to classify unknown imagery or conversations would be reserved to a later stage. The proposed „deal“ will be discussed by ambassadors tomorrow and could be adopted by ministers next week.”
Learning from the “friends” on the other site of the atlantic!
A law like this would violate the rights of all EU citizens. The courts would (should!) strike this law down immediately
Yeah, just like the “Upload Filters”
Poor Axel Voss showed everyone how much of a media company whore he is just to get his biggest lifetime achievement taken down by the EU court because those filters could result in censorship (something that literally everybody told the supporters would happen)
The courts very likely will strike something like this down, but the people responsible know this. Court dealings can take years and during this time our privacy gets violated
and some kind of profit is made.And even when this law is declared illegal the existing data will likely be kept, only new collection is stopped (happened in Germany)
I wish people who proposes laws and regulations that violates human rights with provable intent to do just that would be fined or imprisoned.
I sure hope the courts toss that thing. It would be the single worst violation of peoples privacy since the internet became a thing. It’s incredible that lobbyists and police unions have this much impact on policy creation.
You know, you might vote in a way that harms children in the future, I think we should just nip that potentiality in the bud…
Almost as if in bourgeoisie democracy other interest groups have more influence in policy making than normal voters
this seems like a sus link HAHAHA! WE GOT THEM NOW! CLICKNever going to give you up
GOD DAMMIT GARY this is the 12th time today!
Well they can go fuck themselves. Even if they pass it and messenger or whatsapp start (as in they totally dont already) scanning your chats and snitching I wonder how they are going to force other messaging services to comply.
They can’t. It’s unenforceable.
I’d imagine if, say Signal, refuses to comply and gets banned from the EU, one could always use a VPN. I think that nothing short of either a full global ban or implementing a version of The Great Wall of China would allow these ridiculous laws to be enforced. Even then, there will always be ways around it for those willing to go the extra mile.
Why not just go for Tox or some other P2P serverless communication system? They can’t ban / go after a system that has no central servers, can they?
At least they have the courtesy to write it into law.
This seems to be a general theme. Those arguing loudest for better privacy are really saying “only we should be allowed to invade your privacy”. See: Google, Apple, the EU
It’s such a shame though, since as far as I know, the EU have had such an amazing track record. I’d expect no less from big tech, but not the EU.
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This is a level of bullshit that will straight up make me vote to leave the EU.
Outlawing E2EE should just not be a thing. It just shouldn’t.
Well, this is being implemented in the UK separately so I wouldnt be too hasty
Honestly, they could at least wait and see what happens in the UK before proposing something similar. They literally have a free guinea pig next door.
As if European state governments aren’t also stupid and would come up with this idea.
The EU sucks sometimes but where ever you live in the EU your gov would totally come up with this on their own…
Obviously. The point is that it’s the kind of thing that will make me reject the very society I’m living in, and I would change it wholly to avoid this.
If the source was my own government, for the first time in my life, I’d be considering moving to a new country.
I will just remind yall that an state in the EU has admitted to having access to the Pegasus spyware.
Pegasus is a program that is used by services combating crime and corruption in many countries…It would be bad if the Polish services did not have this type of tool
- Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the leader of the ruling Law and Justice party as quoted by the Verge (first article I found)
He is also quoted as saying that claims that Pegasus had been used against political opponents are “utter nonsense”.
The Polish controversy was started when the spyware was found on a opposition members phone.
The Law and Justice party, according to polls (and some Poles), is set to win the largest number of seats in tomorrows election, though they might struggle to form a government.
We are doomed aren’t we.
UK has been trying to push this for the last 2 years the moment we left the EU
One could think you’re proposing this as an alternate solution. It’s not. And Brexit is the biggest proof.
That said implementing backdoors is so backwards it’s creative in the worst way. You basically prepare the tools for a rogue government, rogue government employee, or a knowledgeable malicious actor to grab secure information from the silver plater. It’s the dumbest shit.
No shit. Only reason I bring it up is as a way to illustrate how badly I do not want this.
What a world we live in, when there’s a possibility my use of a private matrix server between family, might become criminal.
One could think you’re proposing this [leaving the EU] as an alternate solution. It’s not. And Brexit is the biggest proof.
This is not a random thing thrown around, though it should be noted that those more involved in this side of “EU bad” usually advocate for remaking the EU, due to the deep systemic issues rather than leaving it. I believe a more mainstream version of this idea is given a stage by Macron (AFAIK he mostly wants to remove the requirement for every country to agree to some things), but moreso from this angle some Pirate Parties (PPP for example) advocate for it.
Quote from PPP’s programee (translated by yours truly, though I focused on translating it as directly as possible so it might sound a bit weird):
More democracy for Europe
We, Pirates, call for a writing of a new EU treaty, which will replace all existing treaties, remove uncertainties and respond to the need of a democratic reform in the EU. This treaty must be accepted by the citizens of the EU via a referendum.
While this is quite different to “we should leave the EU” it reflects the concerns of those who say that due to policies like this. As far as I know, Brexit was caused more by Brits not liking economic policies of the European Union, though I am not that knowledgeable about UK politics.
TL;DR: you can say EU bad while still wanting an EU I guess.
As far as I know, Brexit was caused more by Brits not liking economic policies of the European Union, though I am not that knowledgeable about UK politics.
I’m not that knowledgeable, being an American, but my understanding is that Brexit was mainly the result of racism, and of English people falling for easily disproven lies about the economic impact of EU membership. I’d like to think that what I lack in direct experience of British politics, I make up for with direct experience of the exact same bullshit in American politics.
Criminals aren’t going to be using services that comply anyways. They’ll have their own underground ones. This is just a violation of regular citizens rights.
With a little knowledge, it’s not very hard to make your own messaging app and share it with those you know. And there’s plenty projects online that give you what you need without having to write the code yourself. Alternatively, there’s just plenty dark web and under the radar apps already that won’t bend to this ruling.
What it is, though, is very inconvenient and annoying to do so.
But if you’re an actual criminal, then there is this solution here that can never be subject to this ruling.
So what this clearly means is that the EU will violate the privacy of all the everyday people that don’t handle that inconvenience, pushing the serious criminals to dark channels.
This law has nothing to do with CSAM or child abuse prevention. “Think of the Children” is just an effective rallying point because, of course, no one wants to come out against it publicly. The Surveillance State grows.
What the actual fuck…
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i live in the EU, it makes me angry
iT’s fOr yOuR kiDs sAfEtY!!1!1!1! As much as I like being in EU, I hate this and hope it doesn’t pass.
Honestly Europe is pretty overrated. I know it varies from country to country, but my experiences in Sweden were nothing but disappointments. People here nut their pants over the positives while completely ignoring the many negatives.
You can’t tell me when or when not to nut my pants!
They will remove encryption from your nuts too.
Joe Biden is going to take our cocks away.
In Czech Republic it’s kinda opposite. People nut their pants over paper straws and Coca-Cola caps you can’t remove and they completely ignore the bilions of euros EU gave us (there are the built from EU funds signs basically everywhere). Also some populist politicians saw the oportunity in this and for example our ex premier now makes cringe Tik-Toks where he shits on EU and green deal, even though he was the premier and his party leading goverment when the green deal was approved and he wasn’t against it. Now he says how EU is bad and how it’s fault of current government. This was one example, but there are many czech politicians trying to milk the general dissatisfaction with EU, making it even worse.
I don’t care about politics, I’m talking about actually living there.
Friendly reminder it’s never about consumer rights. It’s about who is in control of the data.
A question you can all ask yourself. Despite the warts in both who would you rather control your data (you have no choice here. Someone is controlling your data and it is not you)
A. Google, Amazon, Microsoft, etc.
B. Government
You’ll get strong answers either way. Personally I’d rather the government strictly from an accountability perspective but that also warrants governments not electing shitheads which unfortunately the world is leaning towards with these populist right wing politicians gaining favour.
It can be you. It doesn’t have to be Big Corps or Government. It can be federated instances, it can be self-ownership of data, it can be E2E encrypted.
A, by a goddamn long shot. If google mistakenly thinks I’ve advocated for a crime against a massive corporation, they’ll remove my account and ban me from their services. If the government mistakenly thinks I’ve advocated for a crime against a massive corporation, they’ll arrest me and ruin my life. Microsoft doesn’t give a shit if you acquired the 1s and 0s that comprise a popular TV show without paying for them. The government will fine you more than the average person will make in their entire life.
It also depends on where you live. Facebook doesn’t care if you’re gay or trans, if anything that’s valuable monetizable data about you. Iran will straight up fucking kill you.
Tbf in this scenario, google reports you to the police. You get arrested in either scenario.
NEITHER.
The privacy tech is so robust and easily available right now that anyone could spend a few days and replace their everything with privacy focused alternative while still maintaining a solid experience.
This one is completely about the people who pretend to “care about the children” but coincidentally also sell the software that does the proposed CSAM scanning. It’s a money making-scheme for them. Shit like this makes me lose the last bit of hope I have for democracy (really hard to not put this into quotes by this point … +__+).
